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Friday, November 01, 2019

All weapons d6 - an important distinction

Take a look at this post from Jeff Rients. Interesting stuff.

The part I want to address is the conclusion:

Sometimes when you float All Weapons Do d6 rule on the internet, some joker will come back with something like "Well then, I should just spend 1gp to buy 12 iron spikes and hand them out to all my friends. No need to spend the money on anything better, since everything does d6." My response to that is twofold: A) All Weapons Do D6 is not the same concept as All Objects Do D6. Prepare to encounter mechanical penalties for wielding a non-weapon in combat. and B) There's a fine line between clever and stupid and you are are nowhere near that line.

I completely agree.

There is an important distinction to be made here.

If you use the "All Weapons Do d6 rule" and all your players decide to fight with daggers, AND you dislike that, you probably have a problem with your system.

If you use the "All Weapons Do d6 rule" and all your players decide to fight with iron spikes, AND you dislike that, you probably have a problem with your players.

In the first case, players are just playing by the rules (and you might consider changing the rules); in the second, they are misrepresenting the rules on purpose - and you might consider changing your players.

Anyway.

In 5e D&D, there is no reason IN THE RULES for you to buy mace or greatclub, since the quarterstaff is equal/better at everything. But you can always use one of the options Jeff mentions (aesthetics, narrative-style advantages, etc.).

In my latest book, 5e Manual of Arms: Weapons, I give a few rules-oriented options for maces and greatclubs, but also these bits:

Finally, damage types are useful when adjudicating the effect of weapons on objects. Bludgeoning weapons are good against chests and doors, slashing weapons can cut ropes, piercing weapons can put holes on a sack or barrel, etc. Even in the same damage type, you can make distinctions: an axe is useful to cut wood, a whip is not, and a sword can be ruined in the process.

[...]

Martial axes, picks, bludgeoning weapons: double your Strength modifier when calculating damage (if you attacked with Dexterity, add both modifiers instead).

Swords, slashing weapons: get a “free” attack against the same target or another target within range.

Critical hit tables can be fun, but I find that for such a special event, coming up with something adequate and cool on the fly is even better.


In short... If you play 5e and like mechanical differences between weapons, you might be interested in this book.

However, even if you prefer to play with NO explicit differences between weapons, weapon choice can still be meaningful if you and your players use weapons creatively.

5 comments:

  1. All weapons can kill a commoner or a sleeping person in one strike. They are all equally deadly.

    The manner of their deadliness is different.

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    Replies
    1. Hummmmm... yes, but perhaps the same can be said of iron spikes? ;)

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  2. I do agree that we need more mechanical differences between weapons.

    A thought I have to do something different to "All weapons do 1d6" is if using encumbrance slots to have the damage dice scale one "die step" per slot.

    Tiny = 1 (caltrops, blowdarts); many per slot.

    Small = 1d4 (daggers, truncheons); 2 per slot

    Regular = 1d6 (most 1 handed weapons); 1 slot

    Hand and half = 1d8 (versatile weapons)
    2 slots

    Two handed = 1d10 (all heavy weapons)
    3 slots

    Giant Weapons = 1d12 (cannot be wielded by Medium Creatures) 4 slots.

    I realise that this sort of gradation is already done in older editions of D&D, but I think it brings in a balance of "justifying" slower weapon speeds to heavier hitting, larger weapons.

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    Replies
    1. That's very good! It's somewhat similar to 5e (and Dark Fantasy Basic).

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    2. I know it's not an uncommon idea. The thought is more to try for a rule set that is tied to relatively few systems for ease of extrapolation.

      In this case: a Light weapon takes up less than 10% of encumbrance, Heavy weapons between a fifth and a third (basing this off of STR 10).

      The only issue with this is that it doesn't work nicely with Small creatures shifting weapons up one category.

      A crude solution is to make number of slots a multiple of say 12 (for best fractions) and rework item "encumbrance". Whether that's too many numbers on the high end (by my ideas of powerful build = 2x slots and 5e Bear Totem = 2x slots, in 5e a 20th level Goliath Bearbarian is at 96 slots). Enlarge would push it 1 more step to 192.

      Which may not be the worst since actual Giant weapons are 3d10, and that may be where you end up going by die steps for a "regular weapon".

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